‘Utterly Despicable’: Whistleblower Stuns With Claim About Trump DOJ Wanting to Defy the Courts
Erez Reuveni, a veteran Justice Department official and the fired acting deputy director of the Department of Justice’s immigration section, spoke to 60 Minutes’s Scott Pelley over the weekend.
Reuveni, who had argued for the DOJ on behalf of Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” during his first term, alleges that top Trump appointees suggested the administration would defy court orders if need be to carry out Trump’s immigration policy and that he was fired after refusing to sign a brief he knew to be factually incorrect.
Reuveni said that Emil Bove, who was the number three at the Justice Department before Trump made him a federal judge, told him and other top DOJ leaders they may need to tell the courts “f*ck you” if the judges tried to stop their deportations to El Salvador.
Reuveni recalled during the interview, “And we were told at this meeting that over the weekend, the president of the United States would be signing a proclamation invoking something called the Alien Enemies Act. This is a wartime law from 1798 invoked three times in the nation’s history, during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.”
Pelley then explains to the audience, “The Alien Enemies Act allows rapid expulsion from the U.S. of the citizens of enemy nations during a war. But without a declared war, Trump used it against more than 100 Venezuelans that the government said were terrorists. They were to be denied their right to be heard by a judge. Reuveni says Bove expected a challenge.”
Reuveni added, “Bove emphasized, those planes need to take off, no matter what. And then after a pause, he also told all in attendance, and if some court should issue an order preventing that, we may have to consider telling that court, ‘f*** you.’”
Pelley followed up, “And when you heard that, you thought what?”
Reuveni replied, “I felt like a bomb had gone off. Here is the number three official using expletives to tell career attorneys that we may just have to consider disregarding federal court orders.”
Reuveni also explained during the interview why he was removed from his post. Reuveni said that he was told to argue that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant the DOJ admitted was deported and imprisoned in El Salvador by mistake, was an MS-13 gang member and a terrorist.
Reuveni said, “I respond up the chain of command, no way. That is not correct. That is not factually correct. It is not legally correct. That is, that is a lie. And I cannot sign my name to that brief.”
Reactions of shock and anger to Reuveni’s interview quickly flooded social media. Veteran political forecaster Larry Sabato wrote, “If you care about JUSTICE in the United States, you MUST watch this frightening @60Minutes segment about the LAWLESSNESS now at the Trump Justice Dept. They LIE to judges. They BREAK their oath to uphold the Constitution. They are a clear and present DANGER to the Republic.”
Civil rights attorney Leslie Proll added, “Emil Bove is now an appellate court judge for life, thanks to 50 Senators who knew every last bit of this. Trump never should have nominated his law-defying, corrupt personal attorney to the federal bench. But Bove sure as hell shouldn’t have been confirmed. Utterly despicable.”
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